Feature g

The feature g (gender) applies to demonstrative, possessive, indefinite, personal and reflexive pronouns and to the impersonal pronoun. Nevertheless, the feature gender doesn't apply to the weak personal pronouns y and en and to a range of indefinite pronouns where the opposition of the gender is not marked morphologically (beaucoup sont venus; beaucoup sont venues). The feature gender doesn't apply to cardinal pronouns and to most of relative, interrogative, and exclamative pronouns neither, except to those which present a morphological marked gender opposition (lequel/ laquelle, quel/ quelle). Concerning the indefinite pronouns, we can consider the following cases:

1. The opposition of the gender is morphologically marked:
   • aucun/g=m   n'est venu; aucune/g=f   n'est venue
   • certains/g=m   sont venus; certaines/g=f   sont venues
2. The feminine form is ``defective'':
   • Tout /g=m   n'est pas perdu / the feminine form 'toute' cannot be used as pronoun
3. Only one form, that is not marked according to the gender, exists. On the morphological level, we interprete these forms as masculine forms, because they don't accord with feminine past participle forms or feminine adjectives. From a semantic point of view, these forms have neuter value.
   • Personne /g=m   n'est venu / *Personne n'est venue
   • Rien /g=m   ne s'est passé / *Rien ne s'est passée
4. A range of pronouns are not morphologically marked according to the gender, but they may be interpreted either as masculine or as feminine pronouns. We consider that the feature gender doesn't apply to these pronouns, because the interpretation of the gender depends from the gender of the semantic head of the nominal syntagm, semantic head that is not present in the linguistic context.
   • Beaucoup /g=*   sont venus / Beaucoup d'hommes sont venus
   • Beaucoup /g=*   sont venues / Beaucoup de femmes sont venues
   • Suffisamment /g=*   sont venus / Suffisamment d'hommes sont venus
   • Suffisamment /g=*   sont venues / Suffisamment de femmes sont venues
   • Plusieurs /g=*   sont venus / Plusieurs hommes sont venus
   • Plusieurs /g=*   sont venues / Plusieurs femmes sont venues

   Concerning the pronoun on, the semantic head can be an antecedent:

   • Nous les hommes, on /g=*   n'est pas venus / Nous les femmes, on g=* n'est pas venues

   Some of these morphological units can also have semantic ``neuter'' value. In this case, they accord with singular verb forms.

   • On /g=*   n'est pas venu
   • Beaucoup /g=*   dépend des Etats-Unis

Concerning the personal and reflexive pronouns, notice that we consider that the values masculine and feminine don't apply only to the third person where the gender opposition can be marked morphologically (il, elle); we consider that the feature gender applies to the whole paradigms of weak (except for y and en) and strong personal pronouns and to the whole paradigms of weak and strong reflexive pronouns.

• Je /g=m   me /g=m   promène; Je /g=f   me /g=f   promène
• Tu /g=m   te /g=m   promène; Tu /g=f   te /g=f   promène
• Il /g=m   se /g=m   promène; Elle /g=f   se /g=f   promène

 
• Value m
• Value f
• Value *